Vega Baja, Puerto Rico - - Their stories are as compelling
as the images, pictures united in despair. The old woman on
the porch. She's hard to forget. She appeared when she heard
their voices rising from the hill, coming closer and closer,
people chanting and singing, calling his name, "Igor! Igor!"
The old woman smiled. She heard the voice of hope.

She yelled down to the man in Spanish, and Juan Gonzalez,
the man known as Igor, bounded up the steps to greet her. He
wore jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt, and he met the old
woman on the concrete floor in the main living area. It was a
room barely bigger than a king-size bed.

The woman was near tears. She was desperate. Her sons had
been up to no good, she said. Gonzalez embraced the woman,
then, saying something in Spanish, gave her $200.

On the other side of the street, in this part of an area
known as Alto de Cuba, another man was watching. He's hard to
forget. He wore a hat and a tattered brown vest. His name was
Malele Hernandez. But around the barrio, he is called "The
Magician."

"Juan, he never forgets," Hernandez, 70, said in broken
English. "When he was a boy, we got four people to go in.
Together we buy him a ball. The ball costs 20 cents. Now he
buys me dinner.

"He told me one time he comes back because he wants to take
care of his people. Many have almost nothing. But Juan
Gonzalez, he is not ashamed of us."

Say what you want about Juan Gonzalez, the Detroit Tigers'
newest outfielder and former two-time American League most
valuable player who was acquired last month in a trade with
the Texas Rangers.

Call him a whiner for boycotting last season's All-Star
Game, refusing to play as a reserve because he wasn't voted
into the starting lineup.

That won't bother him.

Say he was a brat for skipping the ceremonial Hall of Fame
exhibition game last summer because the oversize pants given
to him made the 6-foot-4 slugger look like a circus clown.

He will accept criticism for that, too.

But challenge Gonzalez's social conscience, and be prepared
to see a man swell with anger.

First, the player who prides himself in knowing the mayors
of all 78 Puerto Rican cities will lecture you on the
relationship between giving and despair. Then, in a firmer
tone, he will explain his view on the difference between
concern and compassion.

And Juan Gonzalez, the people here will say, is a
compassionate man. That's why to know him, they say you must
know Vega Baja.

"You might have heard, someday I'm running for mayor of the
city," Gonzalez said the other day, referring to Vega Baja,
where he grew up. "I like politics. People love me here. The
poor people here, the mayor forgets. Everybody forgets my
neighborhood because you see a lot of drugs. But they are
human. They need help.

"Eight months a year, I am gone because of baseball. But
they know if I didn't have this game, I would be a social
worker. Giving to people is the song of God."

Even now, more than a dozen years after he left Vega Baja
as a gangly 16-year-old when he signed his first professional
contract with the Rangers in 1985, Puerto Ricans still swoon
over Gonzalez, 30.

The feeling has been mutual in part, Gonzalez said, because
his homeland and his family have been the most stable things
in his life.

"My center," he said.

An entourage from the Tigers' front office, which included
manager Phil Garner, general manager Randy Smith and president
John McHale, flew to Puerto Rico recently to see where
Gonzalez grew up.

He received his new Tigers uniform, No. 19, at a news
conference for the local media. At dinner that night, Gonzalez
treated his guests to a meal at an Italian restaurant.

The evening began when one of Gonzalez's friends read a
poem he had written welcoming their visitors from Detroit.

"We had a wonderful time," Garner said. "We got to
understand him better, and it also made me think. One of the
bad things we've done in our society -- if people don't
conform, we verbally beat the hell out of them. One of the
great virtues we have in this country is that we have the
freedom of disagreement.

"Juan is from a different culture. There's no wonder you
want to surround yourself with people you feel comfortable
with."

Though the late Roberto Clemente will always be the
baseball patron saint of Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of nearly
4 million people, the Tigers learned that the love for
Gonzalez is no less intense. Especially in the barrios of Vega
Baja in the northwest part of the island, about 25 miles from
San Juan.

After Gonzalez won the American League home run title on
the final day of the 1992 season, slugging No. 43 to bypass
Mark McGwire, more than 100,000 people lined the expressway
the next day to cheer his motorcade as it passed by.

It was a day of overwhelming joy: Not since Orlando Cepeda
in 1961 had a Puerto Rican led either league in home runs.

Two years later, when Gonzalez's half-brother, Puma, was
found dead of a drug overdose, Juan found comfort among the
people of his neighborhood. Many told him they heard Puma died
with a Bible under his arms.

"I never lived with him together because of different
mothers," Gonzalez said. "When he came back (from New York) at
17 years old, I met with him and talked to him. He was 4 years
older, and I used to see him on the corner, using drugs and
alcohol. I told him, Brother, when you walk with me, you walk
clean.' But he had a lot of problems. He never came back to
the real life. When he died, I cried because he was my blood."

Gonzalez, who was born Oct. 20, 1969 -- the oft-printed
date of Oct. 16 is an error, his mother said -- grew up on a
narrow street called Sanchez Lopez, house No. C-17.

The family stayed there until Gonzalez was 15, when his
father, also named Juan and a retired mathematics teacher,
moved the family to a safer barrio on the other side of the
highway.

The magician Hernandez remembers Gonzalez as a youngster,
how he used to knock on neighbors' doors trying to find
someone to play baseball with. Since there was no field or
baseball diamond nearby, the boys played on the street or in
the overgrown lot at the end of the hill.

Equipment, such as baseballs and bats, was hard to come by,
so Juan used to make his own balls by wrapping bottle caps
with tape. Then he tried taping crushed paper cups. When he
lost the homemade balls, he would sneak into his sisters'
room, pluck the heads off their dolls and bat them down the
street.

"When he was 5 years old, an uncle gave him a glove," his
mother, Lele Gonzalez, said through an interpreter. "That was
the beginning. As a kid he was very obedient and very
peaceful, a kid of the house. When he was young, he'd be
sleeping at 7 p.m.

"I didn't make him go to bed that early; he didn't like to
go out. He used to say, Momma, my dream is to become a
major-league ballplayer.' I'll never forget the day he left
this house to play pro baseball in the states. Everyone in
this house cried. He cried. I cried. Even the cat we had
cried."

When Gonzalez visited his old street recently, two hours
after putting on his Tigers uniform for the first time, he
took his visitors to a basketball court he built six years ago
on Sanchez Lopez. Protected by a high fence, the lime
green-and-yellow court is devoid of trash -- the cleanest
piece of land in the barrio.

It also serves as a kind of neighborhood town square
whenever Gonzalez, who now lives about 20 minutes away, comes
into town.

During the week he made headlines in the Puerto Rican
tabloids because of his loss in a paternity suit -- which
fueled the recent separation between Gonzalez and his current
wife, merengue singer Olga Tanon -- Gonzalez bought 200
turkeys and organized a Thanksgiving buffet on the court for
the neighborhood.

In two weeks, children of the barrio will receive gifts at
his annual Christmas party on the court. Last year, he bought
nearly $5,000 worth of toys. For many, it will be their only
Christmas present.

"Juan is a terrific friend -- he and I helped raise each
other," said Josue Salva, 35, a member of the 1987 Puerto
Rican national baseball team. "He just gives -- even to those
who don't ask."

Citing an example, Salva reached in his pocket and took out
an envelope. It was an early Christmas gift from Gonzalez.
Inside was the receipt for a 10-day Caribbean cruise he had
purchased for his friend.

Luis Mayoral, the Rangers' former Spanish radio broadcaster
and Gonzalez's confidant, was hired recently by the Tigers to
be their Latin American liaison. He said Puerto Ricans admire
Gonzalez not only because he is an excellent hitter, but
because he can "identify with their struggles."

"That's why he gives away so much of his money," Mayoral
said.

Gonzalez will make $7.5 million next season with the Tigers
and then can become a free agent, but the team hopes to sign
him to a long-term deal.

Emphasizing that Gonzalez is not careless with his money,
Mayoral explained that he has invested his money with Smith
Barney since 1994 and is "set for life."

Juan just has an angel on his shoulder," said Mayoral, 53.
"That's why he feels the need to give."

In Vega Baja, Gonzalez is honored daily in the form of
shrines made of baseball cards and photographs bearing his
likeness. Most are displayed next to pictures of the Virgen de
Guadalupe to ensure their national hero will be protected,
shopkeepers said.

In one storefront window covered by a steel gate, framed
pictures of Gonzalez and Ivan Rodriguez, a former Rangers
teammate, hang near a display of children's toys. Gonzalez's
photo is above a symbol of the current Pokemon craze among
kids -- a stuffed yellow Pikachu.

Rodriguez, the current American League MVP (Gonzalez won
the title in 1996 and '98), grew up a few blocks from Gonzalez
in another section of Vega Baja. But he isn't as popular
there, Mayoral said, because he doesn't visit Alto de Cuba as
often as Gonzalez does.

"Juan is 10 times more popular than Pudge here," Mayoral
said. "But in the states, Pudge might be more because when he
sees the cameras, his eyes open up. Here, it is this way: Juan
is king. Not Bernie Williams, not Edgar Martinez, not Pudge.
It's Juan. No ballplayer reaches up to his knees here, even
with all the tabloids and publicity."

Mayoral is referring to the recent reports of the
separation between Gonzalez and Tanon. The marriage, his
fourth, supposedly failed when Gonzalez acknowledged in court
last month that he is the father of a 4-year-old boy, Igor.
Gonzalez had an affair with Igor's mother before his marriage
to Tanon.

Gonzalez has two other children -- 7-year-old Juan, known
as Jay Jay, who lives with an ex-wife; and 3-year-old
Gabriela, whose mother is Tanon.

He supports the children and said he sees them regularly.
Gabriela and Jay Jay will be in Puerto Rico later this month
for the holidays, he said.

Asked if he hopes his marriage to Tanon can be reconciled,
Gonzalez looked down and shook his head, saying: "Right now, I
don't like to talk about it. That situation, it's too
private."

Gonzalez said he has become a Christian and has asked for
forgiveness. He said he had the revelation a few months ago.

"I have everything -- money, good cars, apartment, houses
-- but I was lonely," Gonzalez explained. "When I accepted
Jesus Christ in my heart, I felt more true, more power inside
myself.

"Before, I like women, you know? But right now, with God to
help me, I don't need any more women."

He started to laugh.

"Too many problems!"

Until the trade, Gonzalez said one of his favorite things
about Detroit was Sara Simpson.

Who's she?

Simpson was the longtime elevator operator at Tiger
Stadium. When he visited her last summer, on a hot and humid
day when the Rangers were in town, he saw that Simpson was
sweating profusely.

"The elevator was a sauna, too hot for Sara," Gonzalez
said. "The next day, my wife and I went to the shopping mall,
to the place with fans. I said, lease give me a nice fan.' We
gave it to Sara. I never forget Sara."

Funny thing about that road trip, too.

When he was in right field during one of the games, he
remembers acknowledging a group of fans who kept cheering his
name. He never knew it would be a prelude of things to come.

"When we played there, people were yelling: Hey, Juan, stay
here! Come here! Come here! New stadium!' " Gonzalez said.
"Now I am going there. I think there are fans in Detroit who
will like me. I want them to know that I play for them now.

"When I was traded, it was a shock for me because I played
all my life for the Rangers. But when I received the bad news,
I thanked them for the opportunity. I understand this game.
This game is a business. But I know I have to go to a new
home. I have to start with my new family. I want them to know
they will like Juan Gonzalez."

Tigers fans might like to know that Gonzalez already has
begun working out with his personal trainer. When he comes to
Detroit in late January for a banquet, it will be his first
visit as a Tiger.

He already has a list of goals, beginning with improving
his statistics from last season, including his .326 batting
average, 39 home runs and 128 RBI. Gonzalez called his
performance below average.

Though he has been plagued with wrist and back injuries
during his career, he has another goal of playing in more than
154 games -- the number he played in 1998, his second MVP
year. That season Gonzalez hit 45 homers, drove in 157 runs
and batted .318.

"I want to play for seven or eight more years," Gonzalez
said. "I'm working so hard and my goals are so big. I'm
looking for 45 homers for the Tigers, 140 or 150 RBI and
hitting 3-something.

"I know I have a big weight on my shoulders, but a team is
25 members, and I am only one Juan."

The other day, when Gonzalez took Smith and a group up the
hill past the old woman's house, they entered the lot where
Gonzalez used to play. It is littered with refuse now,
including the rusted shells of abandoned cars.